Since the preceding paragraphs (p. 126) were written, the Cumberland
Excavation Committee has discovered at Appletree, near Birdoswald, a piece
of mums caespiticius which forms a striking parallel to the Wall of Antonine,
and may be noticed briefly here. Appletree is a spot on the line of the wall
commonly called Hadrian's Wall, about a mile and a quarter west of the
Fort of Ambogianna (Birdoswald). Here a ditch of large size is interposed
between the stone wall and the vallum. It diverges from the stone wall
close to Appletree, and then runs eastward between the other two works
and roughly parallel to them : near Birdoswald it fades out so far as the
present surface of the ground is concerned. The Cumberland Committee
examined this abnormal ditch in 1895, and continued the work in the
following years with striking results.

The ditch seemed to have been originally of a rough V-shape, some 8 or 9
feet deep, and 32 or 33 feet wide at the top. The earth from it had been
thrown out northwards and formed a layer nearly 45 feet broad, under which
the black line of the original surface was distinctly, though intermittently,
visible. On the south side of the ditch the untouched subsoil was found to
be overlaid with disturbed earth in which thin black lines could be detected,
distinctly marked in grey or white soil (loam or " clay"). These lines
extended over more than 30 feet in most of the sections, but it was only in